In and Out of the Closet: The Queer History of Homosexuality in America

1. In and Out of the Closet: The Queer History of Homosexuality in America

2. I. Gay New York A. The Myth of the Closet • Image of homosexual life before Stonewall (1969) full of myths and misunderstandings

3. 1. Myth of Isolation • Gays forced to live solitary lives in constant fear of oppression and anti-gay sentiment • Vigilantes • Harassment • Laws

4. Reality • Yes, but laws enforced irregularly, most people viewed homosexuality with indifference or curiosity • Drag Balls: open, crowded

5. 2. Myth of Invisibility • Even if a gay world existed, it was kept hidden and difficult to find

6. Reality • Homosexual enclaves were a tourist attraction in New York until the 1930s

7. Gay Enclaves

8. Greenwich Village

9. Ways of Identifying Each Other: Code Words and Dress

10. 3. Myth of Internalization • Gays internalized and accepted the public’s view of them as sick, perverted, and immoral, and this self-hatred led them to accept abuse rather than resist it

11. Reality • Some certainly, but many also celebrated their difference from the norm • Articles, letters to editor, books, gay bars resist Prohibition, organize, dress

12. II. Defining Self and Sexuality • “Closet” not used by gays themselves until 1960s • “Living a double life”: a mask that could be put on and taken off • Letting one’s hair down

13. Fluidity of Sexuality • A. Homosexual: dichotomy of homosexual-heterosexual not used widely until after WWII • (had been used by psychiatrists and doctors earlier, but not in wide circulation) • Use of division uneven and marked by division: middle class whites adopted it sooner than working class and blacks • On the “down low” (DL) • Dick Addison • “Oh I’m gay, but I don’t want to do that.”

14. B. Other/ None of the Above • 1. Gay: originally anything pleasurable, became code word to identify each other • Do you know the gay places in town? • Become primary word of self-description after WWII

15. 2. Fairy/Faggot/Queen: used within gay community to describe men who dressed/acted in a flamboyantly effeminate manner • Flaming

17. 3. Queer: used before WWII to describe their different sexual interest rather than womanlike gender status • Changed to gay because queer took on negative connotations during WWII

19. Queer:Gay :: Negro:Black • Changing self-description similar to evolution of African American • Negro Colored Black Afro-America African American • “That’s so gay” = “That’s so black”

20. Spectrum: behavior-based

21. Steroids: medical procedure to increase gays’ testosterone to make more “manly”

22. III. The Creation of the Closet: The End of Prohibition • Prohibition: gay community often provides the entertainment for straights going to illegal social clubs

23. State Liquor Authority: crack down on illegal and immoral activity associate with drinking gays targeted

24. IV. Breaking Out: Stonewall and the Gay Liberation Movement • Friday, June 27, 1969: Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village • Stonewall : Brown: gay rights movement existed for decades before Stonewall • Homophile movement; Mattachine Society (LA), Society for Human Rights (Chicago)

25. Police raid patrons fight back

26. Three days of rioting : “gay power” slogans appear as graffiti throughout the area

27. Formation of Gay Liberation Front (GLF): “revolutionary homosexual group of men and women formed with the realization that complete sexual liberation for all people cannot come about unless existing social institutions are abolished. We reject society’s attempt to impose sexual roles and definitions of our nature. We are stepping outside these roles and simplistic myths. We are going to be who we are.”

28. “Say It Loud: Gay is Proud”

29. Goals and tactics influenced by CRM, Student movement, and Women’s Movement (esp. more radical elements) • 1973: 800 gay and lesbian groups in US • 1990: several thousand • 1970: 5,000 march in NYC to commemorate Stonewall • Oct. 1987: 600,000 march on Washington to demand equality

30. V. Breaking Through and the Moral Majority • Impact of Gay Liberation: • Half of states decriminalize homosexual behavior by 1990s • (2003: Lawrence and Garner v. Texas : Supreme Court overturns sodomy laws) • Sexual orientation included in many anti-discrimination laws • 1975: government jobs no longer barred on basis of homosexuality

31. The New Right Responds: • Jerry Falwell, Moral Majority • Anita Bryant “Save Our Children” in Florida • California Prop 6 (1978): Harvey Milk + Log Cabin Republicans + Ronald Reagan • Reagan later criticized for AIDS inaction

32. "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'" • Jerry Falwell, 9-13-01

33. AIDS • AIDS intensified the anti-gay and pro-gay movements • “God Kills Fags” • AIDS Quilt

34. VI. Today: Tolerance vs. Acceptance • Matthew Shepard’s murder (1998) hate crime legislation (2009) • “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”: queer-chic • Gay marriage debate (Prop 8 and lawsuit) • Debate w/in community: do we want to be assimilated? • Constitutional Amendment controversy • Move to overturn Don’t Ask Don’t Tell